Enhanced quality monitoring

ABSTRACT

A system for enhanced quality monitoring, comprising a call record server operating on a network-connected computing device, a quality monitoring analysis server operating on a network-connected computing device that receives and analyzes call records from the call record server, a quality monitoring database that stores analysis results, and a monitoring station operating on a network-connected computing device that allows a human user to monitor call records, and a method for enhancing quality monitoring.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/286,416, titled “ENHANCED QUALITY MONITORING”, and filed on May 23,2014 which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/620,715, titled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PASSIVE COMMUNICATIONRECORDING”, and filed on Sep. 15, 2012, now issued as U.S. Pat. No.8,588,111 on Nov. 19, 2013, and is also a continuation-in-part of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 13/359,484, titled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FORZERO-FOOTPRINT SCREEN CAPTURE”, filed on Jan. 26, 2012, now issued asU.S. Pat. No. 9,215,266 on Dec. 15, 2015, the entire specifications ofeach of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety,and also claims the benefit of and priority to expired U.S. provisionalpatent application Ser. No. 61/969,267, titled “ENHANCED QUALITYMONITORING”, which was filed on Mar. 24, 2014, the entire specificationof each of which is incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Field of the Art

The disclosure relates to the field of quality analysis, and moreparticularly to the field of audio call quality monitoring.

Discussion of the State of the Art

In the field of telecommunications, particularly in contact centers,calls are frequently recorded and reviewed for such purposes asmonitoring center operations, customer needs, or for reviewing contactcenter agent performance. These call recordings are generally reviewedone at a time by trained quality monitoring analysts, who are trained torecognize various customer and agent behaviors and call characteristicsand are responsible for providing agents with scoring information orfeedback on performance.

The traditional approach generally involves an analyst listening to acall and taking notes throughout, such as verifying whether behaviorrequirements were met by the agent, or recording the customer's reasonfor calling. Such an approach is labor-intensive and error-prone, suchas missing critical parts of a conversation due to noise in a recording,or any of a number of problems that might be caused by simple humanerror on the part of the analyst. Furthermore, any information regardinga call must be determined while listening to the recording andperforming the review, introducing the possibility of further errors andpotentially distracting analysts from the content of a recording whilethey focus on other information.

Furthermore, analysts are generally prevented from taking immediateaction pertaining to a review, instead simply recording their resultsand submitting them to be utilized later for agent feedback or coaching.

What is needed, is a means to provide call information to an analyst ina concise and easy-to-digest manner before and during a review so thatthey may focus more on the call itself with basic information alreadyprovided, and to provide analysts with a means to communicate with theagent or other individuals immediately, even during a review operation.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, the inventor has conceived and reduced to practice, in apreferred embodiment of the invention, a system and method for enhancedcall quality monitoring.

According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, a system forenhanced quality monitoring is disclosed, comprising a call recordserver that operates on a network-connected computing device, a qualitymonitoring analytics server that operates on a network-connectedcomputing device, a monitoring interface that operates on anetwork-connected computing device and accepts user interaction, and anagent communications interface that operates on a network-connectedcomputing device. The QM analytics server receives records from therecording server and processes them to extract and optionally infermetadata such as record date and time, detailed information regarding anagent or agents involved in a recording (such as agent ID, name, priortraining, previous quality review scores, or any other information thatmay be potentially relevant to an analyst performing a review of anagent's performance), call qualities such as number of participants ortopic of a call, audio qualities such as an amplitude waveform or voiceanalytics (such as to determine tone or cadence of a speaker, orvocabulary used, such as to monitor an agent for use of forbidden wordsor phrases), or any other such information that may be associated withor inferred from a recording. The QM analytics server may then storethis information, optionally along with a copy of a recording, in a QManalytics database, for future retrieval and use (such as for furtheranalytics or for presentation to a monitoring analyst via a monitoringstation). A monitoring station may present enhanced QM data to ananalyst, such as displaying a recording and any metadata associated withit (such as that stored by a QM analytics server) for viewing andfurther analysis, such as to review a call and score an agent'sperformance while having more detailed and additional data available.

According to another embodiment of the invention, a method for enhancedquality monitoring, comprising the steps of retrieving a call record,analyzing the call record, storing the call record and the results ofanalysis, and presenting the call record for review, is disclosed.According to the embodiment, analysis of a call record may be performedto extract and infer additional information related to a call record orits participants, and this data may then be stored and presented to ananalyst for enhanced quality monitoring. Additionally, in anotherembodiment the method may further comprise the additional steps ofreceiving analyst feedback or other communication and providing thiscommunication to a communication server for handling, such as to send anotification via email or other communication method to an agent, or toschedule an interaction with an agent or another analyst, or any otherpotential communication that might be desired by an analyst during or asa result of viewing a recording.

According to another embodiment of the invention, a graphical userinterface for enhanced quality monitoring comprising an interactiverecord display, detailed agent information display, and interactivecommunication means, is disclosed. According to the embodiment, adynamic and interactive record display may be presented, displayingvarious attributes or elements of a record being reviewed such as anaudio waveform (that may be configurable to represent different audioproperties of a call), an event timeline (such as might display specificevents that occurred during a call, such as a completed sale, asubmitted tech support request, or a quality assessment notation such asa positive or negative performance score impact), or participantinformation such as caller details or number of participants and anychanges that may have occurred during an interaction (for example, if acall was transferred or conferenced). Further according to theembodiment, a detailed agent display may present known informationregarding an agent being monitored, for example their personal details(such as name, age, scheduled working routine, or other personal detailspotentially relevant to an employer or analyst), any skills or trainingthey may have received, contact means such as an email address or directtelephone number to reach the agent (such as if immediate coaching isrequired), or historical assessment information (such as previouslyrecorded performance evaluations for similar interactions, orevaluations within a specified timeframe). Further according to theembodiment, interactive communication means may be presented, such as tocontact another analyst (for example to get a second opinion on apotential issue with an interaction, or to get authorization prior totaking action), or to contact an agent being scored (such as ifimmediate coaching is required). Such communication means may beautomatically configured based at least in part on any knowncommunication methods presented in a detailed agent display, such asincorporating an agent's known personal telephone number for contactingthem outside of their scheduled working hours.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES

The accompanying drawings illustrate several embodiments of theinvention and, together with the description, serve to explain theprinciples of the invention according to the embodiments. One skilled inthe art will recognize that the particular embodiments illustrated inthe drawings are merely exemplary, and are not intended to limit thescope of the present invention.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary hardwarearchitecture of a computing device used in an embodiment of theinvention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary logical architecturefor a client device, according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an exemplary architectural arrangementof clients, servers, and external services, according to an embodimentof the invention.

FIG. 4 is another block diagram illustrating an exemplary hardwarearchitecture of a computing device used in various embodiments of theinvention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing details of call recording managementand call recording servers.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an exemplary system architecture forenhanced quality monitoring, according to a preferred embodiment of theinvention.

FIG. 7 is a method flow diagram illustrating an exemplary method forenhancing a call record for quality monitoring.

FIG. 8 is an illustration of an exemplary quality monitoring userinterface.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The inventor has conceived, and reduced to practice, a system and methodfor enhanced call quality monitoring.

One or more different inventions may be described in the presentapplication. Further, for one or more of the inventions describedherein, numerous alternative embodiments may be described; it should beunderstood that these are presented for illustrative purposes only. Thedescribed embodiments are not intended to be limiting in any sense. Oneor more of the inventions may be widely applicable to numerousembodiments, as is readily apparent from the disclosure. In general,embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilledin the art to practice one or more of the inventions, and it is to beunderstood that other embodiments may be utilized and that structural,logical, software, electrical and other changes may be made withoutdeparting from the scope of the particular inventions. Accordingly,those skilled in the art will recognize that one or more of theinventions may be practiced with various modifications and alterations.Particular features of one or more of the inventions may be describedwith reference to one or more particular embodiments or figures thatform a part of the present disclosure, and in which are shown, by way ofillustration, specific embodiments of one or more of the inventions. Itshould be understood, however, that such features are not limited tousage in the one or more particular embodiments or figures withreference to which they are described. The present disclosure is neithera literal description of all embodiments of one or more of theinventions nor a listing of features of one or more of the inventionsthat must be present in all embodiments.

Headings of sections provided in this patent application and the titleof this patent application are for convenience only, and are not to betaken as limiting the disclosure in any way.

Devices that are in communication with each other need not be incontinuous communication with each other, unless expressly specifiedotherwise. In addition, devices that are in communication with eachother may communicate directly or indirectly through one or moreintermediaries, logical or physical.

A description of an embodiment with several components in communicationwith each other does not imply that all such components are required. Tothe contrary, a variety of optional components may be described toillustrate a wide variety of possible embodiments of one or more of theinventions and in order to more fully illustrate one or more aspects ofthe inventions. Similarly, although process steps, method steps,algorithms or the like may be described in a sequential order, suchprocesses, methods and algorithms may generally be configured to work inalternate orders, unless specifically stated to the contrary. In otherwords, any sequence or order of steps that may be described in thispatent application does not, in and of itself, indicate a requirementthat the steps be performed in that order. The steps of describedprocesses may be performed in any order practical. Further, some stepsmay be performed simultaneously despite being described or implied asoccurring non-simultaneously (e.g., because one step is described afterthe other step). Moreover, the illustration of a process by itsdepiction in a drawing does not imply that the illustrated process isexclusive of other variations and modifications thereto, does not implythat the illustrated process or any of its steps are necessary to one ormore of the invention(s), and does not imply that the illustratedprocess is preferred. Also, steps are generally described once perembodiment, but this does not mean they must occur once, or that theymay only occur once each time a process, method, or algorithm is carriedout or executed. Some steps may be omitted in some embodiments or someoccurrences, or some steps may be executed more than once in a givenembodiment or occurrence.

When a single device or article is described, it will be readilyapparent that more than one device or article may be used in place of asingle device or article. Similarly, where more than one device orarticle is described, it will be readily apparent that a single deviceor article may be used in place of the more than one device or article.

The functionality or the features of a device may be alternativelyembodied by one or more other devices that are not explicitly describedas having such functionality or features. Thus, other embodiments of oneor more of the inventions need not include the device itself.

Techniques and mechanisms described or referenced herein will sometimesbe described in singular form for clarity. However, it should be notedthat particular embodiments include multiple iterations of a techniqueor multiple instantiations of a mechanism unless noted otherwise.Process descriptions or blocks in figures should be understood asrepresenting modules, segments, or portions of code which include one ormore executable instructions for implementing specific logical functionsor steps in the process. Alternate implementations are included withinthe scope of embodiments of the present invention in which, for example,functions may be executed out of order from that shown or discussed,including substantially concurrently or in reverse order, depending onthe functionality involved, as would be understood by those havingordinary skill in the art.

Hardware Architecture

Generally, the techniques disclosed herein may be implemented onhardware or a combination of software and hardware. For example, theymay be implemented in an operating system kernel, in a separate userprocess, in a library package bound into network applications, on aspecially constructed machine, on an application-specific integratedcircuit (ASIC), or on a network interface card.

Software/hardware hybrid implementations of at least some of theembodiments disclosed herein may be implemented on a programmablenetwork-resident machine (which should be understood to includeintermittently connected network-aware machines) selectively activatedor reconfigured by a computer program stored in memory. Such networkdevices may have multiple network interfaces that may be configured ordesigned to utilize different types of network communication protocols.A general architecture for some of these machines may be disclosedherein in order to illustrate one or more exemplary means by which agiven unit of functionality may be implemented. According to specificembodiments, at least some of the features or functionalities of thevarious embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented on one or moregeneral-purpose computers associated with one or more networks, such asfor example an end-user computer system, a client computer, a networkserver or other server system, a mobile computing device (e.g., tabletcomputing device, mobile phone, smartphone, laptop, and the like), aconsumer electronic device, a music player, or any other suitableelectronic device, router, switch, or the like, or any combinationthereof. In at least some embodiments, at least some of the features orfunctionalities of the various embodiments disclosed herein may beimplemented in one or more virtualized computing environments (e.g.,network computing clouds, virtual machines hosted on one or morephysical computing machines, or the like).

Referring now to FIG. 1, there is shown a block diagram depicting anexemplary computing device 100 suitable for implementing at least aportion of the features or functionalities disclosed herein. Computingdevice 100 may be, for example, any one of the computing machines listedin the previous paragraph, or indeed any other electronic device capableof executing software- or hardware-based instructions according to oneor more programs stored in memory. Computing device 100 may be adaptedto communicate with a plurality of other computing devices, such asclients or servers, over communications networks such as a wide areanetwork a metropolitan area network, a local area network, a wirelessnetwork, the Internet, or any other network, using known protocols forsuch communication, whether wireless or wired.

In one embodiment, computing device 100 includes one or more centralprocessing units (CPU) 102, one or more interfaces 110, and one or morebusses 106 (such as a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus). Whenacting under the control of appropriate software or firmware, CPU 102may be responsible for implementing specific functions associated withthe functions of a specifically configured computing device or machine.For example, in at least one embodiment, a computing device 100 may beconfigured or designed to function as a server system utilizing CPU 102,local memory 101 and/or remote memory 120, and interface(s) 110. In atleast one embodiment, CPU 102 may be caused to perform one or more ofthe different types of functions and/or operations under the control ofsoftware modules or components, which for example, may include anoperating system and any appropriate applications software, drivers, andthe like.

CPU 102 may include one or more processors 103 such as, for example, aprocessor from one of the Intel, ARM, Qualcomm, and AMD families ofmicroprocessors. In some embodiments, processors 103 may includespecially designed hardware such as application-specific integratedcircuits (ASICs), electrically erasable programmable read-only memories(EEPROMs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and so forth, forcontrolling operations of computing device 100. In a specificembodiment, a local memory 101 (such as non-volatile random accessmemory (RAM) and/or read-only memory (ROM), including for example one ormore levels of cached memory) may also form part of CPU 102. However,there are many different ways in which memory may be coupled to system100. Memory 101 may be used for a variety of purposes such as, forexample, caching and/or storing data, programming instructions, and thelike.

As used herein, the term “processor” is not limited merely to thoseintegrated circuits referred to in the art as a processor, a mobileprocessor, or a microprocessor, but broadly refers to a microcontroller,a microcomputer, a programmable logic controller, anapplication-specific integrated circuit, and any other programmablecircuit.

In one embodiment, interfaces 110 are provided as network interfacecards (NICs). Generally, NICs control the sending and receiving of datapackets over a computer network; other types of interfaces 110 may forexample support other peripherals used with computing device 100. Amongthe interfaces that may be provided are Ethernet interfaces, frame relayinterfaces, cable interfaces, DSL interfaces, token ring interfaces,graphics interfaces, and the like. In addition, various types ofinterfaces may be provided such as, for example, universal serial bus(USB), Serial, Ethernet, Firewire™, PCI, parallel, radio frequency (RF),Bluetooth™, near-field communications (e.g., using near-fieldmagnetics), 802.11 (WiFi), frame relay, TCP/IP, ISDN, fast Ethernetinterfaces, Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, asynchronous transfer mode(ATM) interfaces, high-speed serial interface (HSSI) interfaces, Pointof Sale (POS) interfaces, fiber data distributed interfaces (FDDIs), andthe like. Generally, such interfaces 110 may include ports appropriatefor communication with appropriate media. In some cases, they may alsoinclude an independent processor and, in some in stances, volatileand/or non-volatile memory (e.g., RAM).

Although the system shown in FIG. 1 illustrates one specificarchitecture for a computing device 100 for implementing one or more ofthe inventions described herein, it is by no means the only devicearchitecture on which at least a portion of the features and techniquesdescribed herein may be implemented. For example, architectures havingone or any number of processors 103 may be used, and such processors 103may be present in a single device or distributed among any number ofdevices. In one embodiment, a single processor 103 handlescommunications as well as routing computations, while in otherembodiments a separate dedicated communications processor may beprovided. In various embodiments, different types of features orfunctionalities may be implemented in a system according to theinvention that includes a client device (such as a tablet device orsmartphone running client software) and server systems (such as a serversystem described in more detail below).

Regardless of network device configuration, the system of the presentinvention may employ one or more memories or memory modules (such as,for example, remote memory block 120 and local memory 101) configured tostore data, program instructions for the general-purpose networkoperations, or other information relating to the functionality of theembodiments described herein (or any combinations of the above). Programinstructions may control execution of or comprise an operating systemand/or one or more applications, for example. Memory 120 or memories101, 120 may also be configured to store data structures, configurationdata, encryption data, historical system operations information, or anyother specific or generic non-program information described herein.

Because such information and program instructions may be employed toimplement one or more systems or methods described herein, at least somenetwork device embodiments may include nontransitory machine-readablestorage media, which, for example, may be configured or designed tostore program instructions, state information, and the like forperforming various operations described herein. Examples of suchnontransitory machine-readable storage media include, but are notlimited to, magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks, andmagnetic tape; optical media such as CD-ROM disks; magneto-optical mediasuch as optical disks, and hardware devices that are speciallyconfigured to store and perform program instructions, such as read-onlymemory devices (ROM), flash memory, solid state drives, memristormemory, random access memory (RAM), and the like. Examples of programinstructions include both object code, such as may be produced by acompiler, machine code, such as may be produced by an assembler or alinker, byte code, such as may be generated by for example a Java™compiler and may be executed using a Java virtual machine or equivalent,or files containing higher level code that may be executed by thecomputer using an interpreter (for example, scripts written in Python,Perl, Ruby, Groovy, or any other scripting language).

In some embodiments, systems according to the present invention may beimplemented on a standalone computing system. Referring now to FIG. 2,there is shown a block diagram depicting a typical exemplaryarchitecture of one or more embodiments or components thereof on astandalone computing system. Computing device 200 includes processors210 that may run software that carry out one or more functions orapplications of embodiments of the invention, such as for example aclient application 230. Processors 210 may carry out computinginstructions under control of an operating system 220 such as, forexample, a version of Microsoft's Windows™ operating system, Apple's MacOS/X or iOS operating systems, some variety of the Linux operatingsystem, Google's Android™ operating system, or the like. In many cases,one or more shared services 225 may be operable in system 200, and maybe useful for providing common services to client applications 230.Services 225 may for example be Windows™ services, user-space commonservices in a Linux environment, or any other type of common servicearchitecture used with operating system 210. Input devices 270 may be ofany type suitable for receiving user input, including for example akeyboard, touchscreen, microphone (for example, for voice input), mouse,touchpad, trackball, or any combination thereof. Output devices 260 maybe of any type suitable for providing output to one or more users,whether remote or local to system 200, and may include for example oneor more screens for visual output, speakers, printers, or anycombination thereof. Memory 240 may be random-access memory having anystructure and architecture known in the art, for use by processors 210,for example to run software. Storage devices 250 may be any magnetic,optical, mechanical, memristor, or electrical storage device for storageof data in digital form. Examples of storage devices 250 include flashmemory, magnetic hard drive, CD-ROM, and/or the like.

In some embodiments, systems of the present invention may be implementedon a distributed computing network, such as one having any number ofclients and/or servers. Referring now to FIG. 3, there is shown a blockdiagram depicting an exemplary architecture 300 for implementing atleast a portion of a system according to an embodiment of the inventionon a distributed computing network. According to the embodiment, anynumber of clients 330 may be provided. Each client 330 may run softwarefor implementing client-side portions of the present invention; clientsmay comprise a system 200 such as that illustrated in FIG. 2. Inaddition, any number of servers 320 may be provided for handlingrequests received from one or more clients 330. Clients 330 and servers320 may communicate with one another via one or more electronic networks310, which may be in various embodiments any of the Internet, a widearea network, a mobile telephony network, a wireless network (such asWiFi, Wimax, and so forth), or a local area network (or indeed anynetwork topology known in the art; the invention does not prefer any onenetwork topology over any other). Networks 310 may be implemented usingany known network protocols, including for example wired and/or wirelessprotocols.

In addition, in some embodiments, servers 320 may call external services370 when needed to obtain additional information, or to refer toadditional data concerning a particular call. Communications withexternal services 370 may take place, for example, via one or morenetworks 310. In various embodiments, external services 370 may compriseweb-enabled services or functionality related to or installed on thehardware device itself. For example, in an embodiment where clientapplications 230 are implemented on a smartphone or other electronicdevice, client applications 230 may obtain information stored in aserver system 320 in the cloud or on an external service 370 deployed onone or more of a particular enterprise's or user's premises.

In some embodiments of the invention, clients 330 or servers 320 (orboth) may make use of one or more specialized services or appliancesthat may be deployed locally or remotely across one or more networks310. For example, one or more databases 340 may be used or referred toby one or more embodiments of the invention. It should be understood byone having ordinary skill in the art that databases 340 may be arrangedin a wide variety of architectures and using a wide variety of dataaccess and manipulation means. For example, in various embodiments oneor more databases 340 may comprise a relational database system using astructured query language (SQL), while others may comprise analternative data storage technology such as those referred to in the artas “NoSQL” (for example, Hadoop Cassandra, Google BigTable, and soforth). In some embodiments, variant database architectures such ascolumn-oriented databases, in-memory databases, clustered databases,distributed databases, or even flat file data repositories may be usedaccording to the invention. It will be appreciated by one havingordinary skill in the art that any combination of known or futuredatabase technologies may be used as appropriate, unless a specificdatabase technology or a specific arrangement of components is specifiedfor a particular embodiment herein. Moreover, it should be appreciatedthat the term “database” as used herein may refer to a physical databasemachine, a cluster of machines acting as a single database system, or alogical database within an overall database management system. Unless aspecific meaning is specified for a given use of the term “database”, itshould be construed to mean any of these senses of the word, all ofwhich are understood as a plain meaning of the term “database” by thosehaving ordinary skill in the art.

Similarly, most embodiments of the invention may make use of one or moresecurity systems 360 and configuration systems 350. Security andconfiguration management are common information technology (IT) and webfunctions, and some amount of each are generally associated with any ITor web systems. It should be understood by one having ordinary skill inthe art that any configuration or security subsystems known in the artnow or in the future may be used in conjunction with embodiments of theinvention without limitation, unless a specific security 360 orconfiguration system 350 or approach is specifically required by thedescription of any specific embodiment.

FIG. 4 shows an exemplary overview of a computer system 400 as may beused in any of the various locations throughout the system. It isexemplary of any computer that may execute code to process data. Variousmodifications and changes may be made to computer system 400 withoutdeparting from the broader spirit and scope of the system and methoddisclosed herein. CPU 401 is connected to bus 402, to which bus is alsoconnected memory 403, nonvolatile memory 404, display 407, I/O unit 408,and network interface card (NIC) 413. I/O unit 408 may, typically, beconnected to keyboard 409, pointing device 410, hard disk 412, andreal-time clock 411. NIC 413 connects to network 414, which may be theInternet or a local network, which local network may or may not haveconnections to the Internet. Also shown as part of system 400 is powersupply unit 405 connected, in this example, to ac supply 406. Not shownare batteries that could be present, and many other devices andmodifications that are well known but are not applicable to the specificnovel functions of the current system and method disclosed herein.

In various embodiments, functionality for implementing systems ormethods of the present invention may be distributed among any number ofclient and/or server components. For example, various software modulesmay be implemented for performing various functions in connection withthe present invention, and such modules may be variously implemented torun on server and/or client components.

Conceptual Architecture

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing details of call recording managementand call recording servers. Recording management server 440 isconfigured to select the communications that are to be recorded incommunication environment 400. Core server 540 receives notificationfrom CTI interface 541 that communications for a particular target (forexample, all communication packets destined for a specific IP addressand port from a specific source IP address and port) as selected bycontact center agent selection function known in the art, are to berecorded (herein, referred to as “recording target”). Core server 540then notifies recorder interface 530 to instruct record server 430 torecord communications for the recording target. When recorder 520receives the recording target's identification information, in thisexample, a destination IP address and port number, a hash key thatcorresponds to the identification information for this target, iscreated in a first hash table (herein, referred to as “hash table one”)in hashtables 521.

In a similar process, Core server 540 receives a notification from SIPinterface 542 that communications for a particular target (for example,all communication packets that arrive from a specific source IP addressand port) as selected by contact center agent selection function knownin the art, are to be recorded (herein, also referred to as “recordingtarget”). Core server 540 then notifies recorder interface 530 toinstruct record server 430 to record communications for the recordingtarget. When recorder 520 receives the recording target's identificationinformation, in this example a destination IP address and port number, ahash key that corresponds to the identification information for thistarget, is created in a second hash table (herein, referred to as “hashtable two”) in hashtables 521.

In a similar process, Core server 540 receives notification from JTAPIinterface 543 that communications for a particular target (for example,all communication packets destined for a specific IP address and port)as selected by contact center agent selection function known in the art,are to be recorded (herein, also referred to as “recording target”).Core server 540 then notifies recorder interface 530 to instruct recordserver 430 to record communications for the recording target. Whenrecorder 520 receives the recording target information, a hash key thatcorresponds to the identification information for this target, iscreated in a third hash table (herein, referred to as “hash tablethree”) in hashtables 521.

Referring again to FIG. 5, in the typical operation of the system,packets will be moving through the system from a source to adestination. While in a network router, or other IP networkingperipheral, the packets will arrive at packet source 500 (for example aSPAN port, IP tap, or another packet mirroring port known in the art).Sniffer 510 then captures the packets from packet source 500 and passesthe packet to cyclic buffer 511. When a packet is received in cyclicbuffer 511, recorder 520 is notified. Recorder 520 then analyzes thepacket contents and compares the information to the hash tables inhashtables 521. If the identification information (for example,destination IP address, destination port, source IP address, and sourceport) match an entry in hash table one of hashtables 521 thatcorresponds to the identification information for this recording target,the system keeps the packet for further processing (herein, referred toas “packet of interest”). Otherwise, if the identification informationof the packet does not correspond to any entries in hash table one ofhashtables 521, a new set of identification information is set (forexample, destination IP address and destination port) and compared tothe entries in hash table two of hashtables 521. If the identificationinformation (for example, destination IP address and destination port)match an entry in hash table two of hashtables 521 that corresponds tothe identification information for this recording target, the systemkeeps the packet for further processing (herein, referred to as “packetof interest”). Otherwise, if the identification information of thepacket does not correspond to any entries in hash table two ofhashtables 521, a new set of identification information is set (forexample, the source IP address and source port) and compared to theentries in hash table three of hashtables 521. If the identificationinformation (for example, source IP address and source port) match anentry in hash table three of hashtables 521 that corresponds to theidentification information for this recording target, the system keepsthe packet for further processing (herein, referred to as “packet ofinterest”). Otherwise, if the identification information of the packetdoes not correspond to an entry in hash table three nor any of the otherhash tables, the packet is discarded.

Once a packet of interest is identified in cyclic buffer 511 by recorder520 as outlined above, the packet is copied to packet storage 450 usinga standard packet capture library (for example, PCAP, WinCAP, or anotherpacket capture function available in the art). If a request to monitor arecording target is requested by recording user interface 465, then coreserver 540 sends a request through recorder interface 530 to recorder520 to pass all the corresponding packets of interest to RTP interface522. RTP interface 522 forwards RTP stream 523 (that is, the payloadcomponent of an IP communication) to monitoring station 460 for thecommunication to be monitored.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an exemplary system architecture 600 forfacilitating enhanced quality monitoring, according to a preferredembodiment of the invention. According to the embodiment, a call recordserver 430 may be connected to a quality monitoring analytics server601, such as to provide call records for analytics operations. Callrecords may be provided automatically, such as routine or scheduledquality monitoring, or may be actively requested, such as by an analystselecting a call for review (either specifically or according tospecified criteria, such as a time period or an agent ID). Additionally,calls may be automatically selected and requested by a QM analyticsserver based on known criteria or rules, such as periodically selectingcalls according to a schedule or selecting calls based onpreviously-stored quality review results (for example, selectingadditional calls from an agent that recently received a negativeevaluation, or selecting additional calls of a particular type based onprevious quality reviews).

QM analytics server 601 may perform analytics on call records such as toidentify and extract or infer information for use in quality monitoring,such as call qualities (such as date and time, duration, audio quality,or other qualities of a call itself), participant information (such asnumber of participants, apparent information such as gender or age, orother participant details), audio properties (such as voice tone orvocal intensity, loudness, pace or cadence, vocabulary, or other audioqualities), or any other such information that may be potentially usefulfor quality monitoring. QM analytics server 601 may then associate anynew information with a call record as metadata, to be optionally storedin a QM database 602 (optionally with a new copy of a call record forfaster retrieval by a QM analytics server when needed) or immediatelypresented to a monitoring station 460 for review by an analyst. In thismanner it can be appreciated that analytics may be performed on callrecords and the results stored for future use (such as may be useful forbatch operations, or analyzing a number of calls for immediate reviewwhen desired, without having to perform analytics at that time), or itmay be performed “live”, on a call record that is being requested by ananalyst for enhanced quality monitoring, such as when an analyst maywish to score a recent call that has not been analyzed, or to score acall not otherwise selected for review (such as to review a “control”record for QA calibration purposes).

A further use of a QM analytics server 601 may be that of analyzing notonly call records, but also review operations performed. For example,analysis might reveal that a particular quality analyst has a tendencyto focus on particular call attributes, such as an agent's tone ofvoice, while ignoring others, such as an agent's adherence to a callscript. In such instances, an analytics server 601 may optionallyprovide additional metadata pertaining to call record attributes, suchas making attributes more apparent if they have a history of beingoverlooked (for example, highlighting an introduction portion of a callrecord to indicate that it requires attention). An additional use ofsuch trend observation pertaining to analysts, might be to determinewhen an analyst should perform a QA calibration (as are common in theart), to ensure they continue to score agents accurately. For example,if an analyst has reviewed similar calls recently but provided largelydifferent results (such as ignoring certain characteristics of one call,but focusing on them in another, or continually ignoring characteristicsthat should be considered important and scored strictly), they (or otherquality personnel, such as their manager or a team lead) might benotified that a calibration is needed, or a calibration might beautomatically provided before any new call records may be retrieved forreview. In this manner, a QA analytics server 601 may enhance operationsin a “bi-directional” manner, both improving the relevance and qualityof call records being scored, as well as the relevance and quality ofthe scoring operations performed and scores being provided.

Detailed Description of Exemplary Embodiments

FIG. 7 is a method flow diagram illustrating an exemplary method 700 forenhancing call records for quality monitoring. In an initial step 701, acall record may be retrieved for review, such as by requesting aparticular call record or by automatically retrieving a record matchingpreviously-specified criteria (such as scheduled operation, orautomatically selecting records matching a particular interactioncategory or characteristic, such as sales calls). In a next step 702, acall record may be analyzed such as to determine any call metadata thatmight be helpful for a review operation, for example determining audiocharacteristics, participant information, or any other information thatmay be seen as potentially useful for review or analysis. In a next step703, analysis results (such as any metadata extracted or inferred) maybe stored for future use, optionally along with a copy of the callrecord (such as to explicitly store call records with their metadata, orto store a second copy of a call record with embedded metadata afteranalysis while leaving the original record unaltered). In a next step704, a call record may be presented for review, and any associated orembedded metadata may be presented for use in review operations.

FIG. 8 is an illustration of an exemplary user interface 800 for aquality analyst to perform enhanced monitoring operations. Asillustrated, a dynamic and interactive record display 810 may bepresented, displaying various attributes or elements of a record beingreviewed such as an audio waveform 811 (that may be configurable torepresent different audio properties of a call), an event timeline 812(such as might display specific events that occurred during a call, suchas a completed sale, a submitted tech support request, or a qualityassessment notation such as a positive or negative performance scoreimpact), or participant information 813 such as caller details or numberof participants and any changes that may have occurred during aninteraction (for example, if a call was transferred or conferenced).Such display elements may be presented simultaneously (as illustrated)for a unified review interface, or optionally may be configured anddisplayed interchangeably such as to view each display in greater detailor with less “clutter” during a review.

Further according to the embodiment, a detailed agent display 820 maypresent known information regarding an agent being monitored, forexample their personal details 821 (such as name, age, scheduled workingroutine, or other personal details potentially relevant to an employeror analyst), any skills or training they may have received 822, contactmeans 823 such as an email address or direct telephone number to reachthe agent (such as if immediate coaching is required), or historicalassessment information 824 (such as previously recorded performanceevaluations for similar interactions, or evaluations within a specifiedtimeframe). As described previously, such information may be presentedsimultaneously or interchangeably in various combinations, according toa particular review operation.

Further according to the embodiment, interactive communication means 830may be presented, such as to contact another analyst 831 (for example toget a second opinion on a potential issue with an interaction, or to getauthorization prior to taking action), or to contact an agent beingscored 832 (such as if immediate coaching is required). Suchcommunication means may be automatically configured based at least inpart on any known communication methods presented in a detailed agentdisplay, such as incorporating an agent's known personal telephonenumber for contacting them outside of their scheduled working hours.Such communication means may be further utilized to schedule futurecontact with an agent or other individual, such as setting up ascheduled coaching session with the agent under review and additionalanalysts or management personnel, or scheduling a second review byanother analyst (such as to get additional input).

The skilled person will be aware of a range of possible modifications ofthe various embodiments described above. Accordingly, the presentinvention is defined by the claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for enhanced quality monitoring,comprising: a call record server operating on a network-connectedcomputing device; a quality monitoring analysis server operating on anetwork-connected computing device; a quality monitoring databaseoperating on a network-connected computing device; and a call monitoringsoftware module operating on a monitoring station network-connectedcomputing device comprising at least a video screen and an audio outputdevice; wherein the call record server records an audio call andprovides a resulting call recording to the quality monitoring analysisserver; wherein the quality monitoring analysis server analyzes the callrecording, the analysis comprising at least the steps of: automaticallydetecting a plurality of call stages and tagging the call recordingaccordingly; measuring a plurality of audio attributes of each of theplurality of call stages and tagging each corresponding portion of thecall recording with the plurality of measured audio attributes, theplurality of measured audio attributes including at least vocalintensity and pace of speech; and automatically identifying, using theplurality of measured audio attributes, a portion of the call recordingthat requires particular attention by a human monitor; wherein thequality monitoring database stores results of the analysis and the callrecording; wherein the quality monitoring analysis server determinesthat a specific call recording requires human monitoring and thereuponsends the call recording and its associated analysis results to the callmonitoring software module for review by a human user; and wherein thecall recording and associated analysis are presented by the callmonitoring software via the video screen of the monitoring stationvisually, the visual presentation comprising at least a visualrepresentation of the audio waveform of the call recording, an indiciaof a transition from a first call stage to a second call stage, and anindicia of a call stage that requires particular attention from thehuman monitor.
 2. A method for enhancing quality monitoring, comprisingthe steps of: (a) obtaining a call recording, using a call record serveroperating on a network-connected computing device; (b) analyzing thecall recording, using a quality monitoring analysis server operating ona network-connected computing device, the analyzing comprising thesubsteps of: automatically detecting a plurality of call stages andtagging the call recording accordingly; measuring a plurality of audioattributes of each of the plurality of call stages and tagging eachcorresponding stage of the call recording with the plurality of measuredaudio attributes, the measured audio attributes including at least vocalintensity and pace of speech; and automatically identifying, using theplurality of measured audio attributes, a portion of the call recordingthat requires particular attention by a human monitor; (c) storingresults of the analysis in a quality monitoring database operating on anetwork-connected computing device; and (d) presenting the results ofthe analysis and the call recording to a human monitor user using callmonitoring software stored and operating on a network-connectedmonitoring station computing device comprising at least a video screenand an audio output device, the visual presentation comprising at leasta visual representation of the audio waveform of the call recording, anindicia of a transition from a first call stage to a second call stage,and an indicia of a call stage that requires particular attention fromthe human monitor.